nbc's jay gray is in dallas where the tickets are being at a fast and furious pace. jay? >> reporter: yeah, we're at fuel city where they sell a ton of gas. they have great tacos here. they sell a lot of other things too. as you can see the big ticket item today obviously has been those tickets. first you have the group that came in before work this morning, then the lunchtime crowd came in, now we're getting a bit of lull before the end of work group makes their way through to buy tickets. and we expect this place to be jam packed like it has been throughout the day today. they are selling at a fast pace, not only here in dallas, but across the country, a lot of work going on, and right now the "associated press" just reporting the rate of sales is 130,000 tickets every minute right now. they've already sold more than $1 billion worth of tickets. you know, that $1 out of every $2 that is spent on a ticket goes to the state selling that ticket. a lot of states obviously use that to fund programs including education here in texas and some other programs. i hate to say this